The Financial Survival Network is dedicated to helping you build your financial fortress so that you can survive and thrive in the new economy. It's all about what's next!

Dave Kranzler has been following housing price trends for many years now. Government can spin, create new low downpayment and now downpayment schemes, but if people aren't working or are underemployed, it's going to be very difficult to get the housing market going again. What we're seeing in most of the country, with the exception of the internationally influenced markets like New York City and Miami, is a market that's going nowhere fast and Dave believes it will stay that way into the indefinite future, until something changes in the general economy at large.

And when it comes to employment numbers, they were cooked last month just like they've been cooked for years. They're really at depression era levels. The head of Gallup Research finally came out and said so, at the risk of being disappeared. So you can pretty much take it to the Too Big To Fail Bank.

Finally, Dave's just put together a report showing that while Amazon is a great company with wonderful service and hard to beat prices, they have a problem; they're not making any money and have been relying upon debt to stay afloat, just like the American Economy. How much longer can they go on like this? Will they go the way of Brick and Mortar retailing?

Gary Christenson has been studying precious metals prices for many years. He has a valuation model that shows that the metals are quite undervalued at this particular moment. The key is filtering out the daily moves and gyrations. That's the time when manipulation takes place. Once you filter this out, you get a clear picture and you understand the true direction and where you need to be investing.

John writes, "Tuesday’s markets really liked hearing that Greece’s new “radical-left” leaders had, once in office, backpedalled on their demand for debt restructuring. Now they apparently just want the country’s unmanageable debt to be rescheduled. SeeHopes for Greek Debt Deal Rise After Athens Softens Tone.

This, of course, is just semantics. Either a big chunk of Greece’s debt somehow goes away or its economy implodes, so whatever they call the deal it will have to amount to a massive haircut if it’s to prevent a default in 2015.

Meanwhile, Syriza’s other policies include reversing electricity and oil privatizations, re-hiring of laid-off public sector workers, scrapping recently-streamlined labor laws, raising the minimum wage and restoring the practice of paying an extra month’s benefits to pensioners. In other words, if given free rein they’ll do exactly the things that always produce a bloated public sector that leads to excessive borrowing that in turn guarantees a currency crisis."

Aaron Clarey has taken on a new and unlikely mission, releasing the Black Man from poverty. His new book The Black Man's Guide Out of Poverty is due to be released shortly. What are his keys to achieving this result? Quite simple actually, stay out of trouble with the law, entrenpreneurship and get away from trouble makers. Seems simple and many of his clients at Asshole Consulting are Black and have hopefully already taken this advice to heart.

Robert and I discuss our weight-loss journeys and how we got serious about restoring our health. It all started with a recognition that something was wrong and that if we didn't change it, we were going to have major health problems down the road. Then a visit to the doctor, some medication, major lifestyle changes and presto weight-loss and our lives have changed for the better.

We sat down with Michelle Seiler-Tucker to discuss the Vaccine debate. For many years children have been forced to receive vaccinations against many diseases. Lately many people have been opting out of the program and once extinct childhood diseases have come raging back. The question is, should parents have the right to decide whether their children should receive these vaccines? Michelle comes down on the side of parental choice.

And speaking of choice, there's no better choice to decide to your financial freedom than owning your own business, which Michelle is an expert. But you're almost always better buying an existing profitable business than starting one from scratch. Something else to think about.

Jordan Goodman is known for his commonsense attitude towards personal finance. He's always looking to help you get that extra edge, whether it's helping you pay your mortgage off decades early or getting extra yield in the safest possible way. He says that low oil prices and the crisis in Europe insure that the dollar's value is going to continue going up. So you need to think outside the box to insure that the value of your investments is stable and to keep on earning healthy returns. He has answers which is why he's called Americas Money Answers Man.

Barry Stuppler has been selling precious metals and rare coins for decades. Last year he achieved a major milestone in getting both houses of Congress and the President to pass a major piece of anti-counterfeiting legislation that will help stem the flow of phony precious metals. And it's just in time too, because the market for gold and silver has been heating up since the 1st of the year. With the Euro crisis, Greece, the unpegging of numerous currencies and lots of other trends, currencies are getting riskier by the day. It's no wonder that demand for bullion is going up.

Bill Holter has been observing the current world crisis with increasing alarm. The debt merry-go-round is spinning faster and faster out of control. Now that ECB has begun QE in earnest and the Swiss have broken the Euro/Franc peg, it's hard to imagine how much longer the system will stay afloat. Greece's debts are unsustainable, the derivatives bubble is about to be popped and counter-party risk is about to become the term dujour. Will there be a systemic collapse leading to seizure of the credit markets? Bill thinks it could happen, but we all certainly hope not.

It's been a while since we last connected with our good friend and colleague Jay Taylor. We've learned much from him over the years. One thing is that governments never learn and that they'd rather keep giving out goodies and feeding their socialist programs, the truth be damned. That's one of the reasons the world finds itself in the current crisis, failure to treat its citizens as grown-ups. Until we all understand that there are no free lunches or EBT cards, we can expect the crashes to keep on coming and to keep getting worse and worse.

Bill Still is a former newspaper editor and publisher. He has written for USA Today, The Saturday Evening Post, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, OMNI magazine, and produced the syndicated radio program, Health News. He has written 22 books and two documentary videos. In 1996 he created the documentary The Moneymasters. He believes that the current world problems can be traced directly to the financial industry's control of the money supply. By allowing large financial institutions to control the creation and supply of monetary units, governments have given up sovereignty and allowed the current crisis to occur. His solution is simple and he believes the results would be fast and effective. Listen and let us know what you think.

According to Bo Polny gold has broken out. The big resistance is $1300 where the big money is trying to hold it back. Silver outperformed gold in January and it will probably outperform it into the near future. To Bo the trade is on silver rather than gold. The ratio between the two is so out of whack that it virtually has to narrow. As has been said in the past, "Silver is the money of the people, gold is the money of kings."

Craig Bergman, creator of Unfair: Exposing The IRS, is out advocating the abolition of the IRS. He believes that the time has come. The system is antiquated, unfair and unAmerican. Now with Obamacare, your compliance costs have shot through the roof. Americans are wasting over $1 trillion per year, enough to nearly balance the budget. The time is now to contact your senators and congressmen and get the job done.

Sandy Botkin, CPA and Attorney and leading IRS authority says that paying taxes and fear of the IRS due to perceived improper documentation are probably two of the most important concerns among real estate professionals in the country. The real secret that most self-employed taxpayers don’t realize is that tax planning is a year-round activity especially if you want to keep much more of what you make.

Volatility continues to be the buzz word. Stock markets were down for the month. Energy continues to get slammed, big time. The dollar is still going up, which means the Euro is going down. Precious metals seem to have begun their long awaited rise, but it's still too early to know for sure. And bitcoin continues to take it on the chin, with double digit monthly declines.

Martin Armstrong says, "Anyone who claims to be not a doom and gloomer is either a sublime idiot or a fool in denial. This is not a system that can be sustained indefinitely." We agree and have been saying this for years. But that doesn't mean you have to be in a depressive funk. There's always humor to be found in every tragedy. Don't believe it, look at Comrade deBlasio. He's always good for a chuckle, whether he's out killing groundhogs or giving away the store. We also talk about a NYC teach who's gotten lousy reviews for 6 years running, is habitually late and absent and can't seem to manage her classroom. Her penalty, 45 days suspension without pay and more coaching. There's no gloom and doom here at FSN, ever!

John writes about Business Insider's recently posted a Deutsche Bank chart that illustrates the difference between life under the Classical Gold Standard and today’s “modern” forms of money. It’s for the UK only but is a pretty good representation of the world in general:

For the first four hundred years depicted here, money was gold and silver — the quantity of which rose at roughly the same rate as the human population. Prices during that time fluctuated, but only modestly by today’s standards, and they always returned to more-or-less the same level. In other words, money held its value for not just years but centuries. It was a fixed aspect of the financial environment and was therefore not a tool of economic policy. Governments and individuals had to adapt to unchanging money rather than forcing money to adapt to political circumstances.

Steve Lord isn't concerned about bitcoin's recent plunge in value. Rather he's looking at Coinbase's recent $75 million raise of capital and sees that as confirmation that Wall Street's interest level is going up. New York State has backed off of much of its proposed draconian regulation of digital currencies and is focusing primarily on exchanges, where there's the highest potential for fraud. Steve and the rest of the world are wondering if the Greeks and other EU citizens will flee to bitcoin, if confidence in European banks keeps dropping, which is already happening. Such an event could easily lead to another rapid appreciation of the digital currency, which could quickly leave the last record in the dust.

Frank V. Vernuccio, Jr., joined us today to discuss the political crisis that is brewing in New York. With the arrest of Sheldon Silver and the shadow that has been cast upon Governor Andrew Cuomo, a crisis of confidence is brewing. New York's corrupt-to-the-core politics is not unique, by any stretch. It's just in the spotlight now. If Silver decides to sing, a large portion of New York's government could be holding court in Club Fed. Is the time now ripe for reform? That remains to be seen.

Chris Martenson was back with us today. He's wondering what Germany and the ECB will be doing with the Greek Debt burden now that the anti-austerity government has been elected. The new government is unwilling to service the unsustainable debt load and is demanding relief. But if ECB gives in, what about Spain, Italy and the others? We're quickly reaching the point where the can, can no longer be kicked down the road.

Born in Detroit’s inner city, Earnest Cobb faced many challenges from a young age. Gangs, drugs and crime was a way of life. The future Slot Guru followed the teachings of his grandmother to stay in school and stay away from drugs. At a young age he found a love in baseball, and it was on the field that he first channeled his energies. Baseball was his ticket out of the inner city and the life he knew. Through his dedication to hard work and determination to reach success he earned a college athletic scholarship. Ultimately, it became the game changer of his life... until he played a slot machine. Earnest tells us how he did it and how you can too.

Dennis Miller of MillersMoney.com joined us today. Investing is all about managing risk. When you're approaching retirement you need to be obsessed with it, which is why you if you're not using trailing stops, you should be. Dennis explains how it's done. He also cautions investors who are looking for safety to jump into annuities. Check out his Free Report on the topic. And don't write off gold and silver just yet either. No one can tell what the future will bring.

We talked with Professor Car Schramm today about the state of New York State and it's a real scandal. The once Empire State is a mere shadow of its former self. And no wonder, the inmates are running the asylum. With the recent indictment of Sheldon Silver, arguably the most powerful politician in New York, a web of corruption and self-dealing has been uncovered, which was obvious for years to all but the most uninterested. We also talked about Carl's new book about entrepreneurship, which promises to be quite interesting.

We spoke with Tom Cloud today about the state of the world precious metals markets. Things continue to tighten up as prices rise. The Swiss evidently have been tightening their relations with the Chinese and their act of breaking the peg to the Euro could have been part of that relationship. We'll tell more as we know more, but it's an interesting aspect to the story that's been completely ignored by the mainstream media.